As players and coaches get ready to return to the field, the Toronto Blue Jays could be setting the stage for a return to the CBC.

Team president Paul Godfrey told season-ticket holders gathered at Thursday's annual State of the Franchise conference that the Blue Jays are considering options for a secondary television broadcast partner for the coming season, and that the CBC is on the short list of contenders.

Blue Jays president Paul Godfrey (left, with Rogers Communications president and CEO Ted Rogers) said the CBC is in the running to broadcast Blue Jays games in 2007.
(Frank Gunn/Canadian Press file photo)

"There are discussions going on," Godfrey told CBC Sports Online on Friday, one week before Blue Jays pitchers and catchers are to report to camp in Dunedin, Fla. "But we're only in the discussions phase. There's nothing firm."

The Blue Jays' TV contract with Rogers Sportsnet (which, like the club, is owned by Rogers Communications) and TSN expired after the 2006 season.

While Sportsnet will continue to show the vast majority of Blue Jays games in 2007, Godfrey said the team is in talks with both TSN and the CBC — which last carried Blue Jays games from 1993 to 2002 — to determine which broadcaster will pick up the rest.

It is possible that the CBC and TSN would split the rights to those games, according to Godfrey.

"It would be my preference probably to have three [broadcast partners]," Godfrey told Sports Online.

The Blue Jays open their 2007 regular season on April 2 against the Detroit Tigers.